Remember When
by Elfin Maid
Summary: Just two words, simple and sweet. Yet at the time they meant everything. [One-shot.]


**Another one-shot! This fic has a happy ending, as requested by a guest reviewer, so enjoy!**

**Elfin Maid**

* * *

_Remember when._

Just two words, simple and sweet. Words that he had clung to for many years, words that had meant everything.

_Remember when._

* * *

"No, Tauriel!"

She turned, tears sliding down her cheeks.

She was breaking apart inside, but his heart had shattered long ago, or so it seemed. It had broken into a million pieces when she had left him, and he doubted if it would ever heal again.

"You cannnot go," he whispered, voice cracking. He still clung to hope. Even after all this time.

Her lips parted, pain so great he could not bear to look swimming in her eyes.

"I have to," she wept. "I have nothing now."

He caught her arm. "Yes, Tauriel, you do. You still have me."

She shook her head violently. "No. Not anymore." She turned away again, as she had been doing for so many years.

"Please, Tauriel," he whispered.

She halted, and for one second hope rose up, only to be crushed once more.

"No, Legolas." Her voice was breaking, but he knew it was not because she had to leave him. "No," she repeated. "I cannot stay. Not this time. But... I'll be back, one day."

"You don't have to leave," he pleaded.

"Yes, I do. I cannot stay," she said hollowly. Repeating the same words over and over, as if she could not think of anything else to say.

Legolas bowed his head, eyes stinging with tears he did not dare to shed. "I will wait," he whispered.

Tauriel smiled grimly, tears dried on her cheeks. "You have been waiting for a long time now. I will be back," she promised. "I do not know when. Just...remember me." Her eyes clouded over once more. "I have given everything but my own life. I ask of you that you do the same. Your father does not understand," she whispered. "I fear that you will become the same."

She touched his cheek, once.

And then she was gone.

_Remember me._

* * *

Grief. Deeper then she could possibly imagine.

She couldn't, wouldn't stay. Not after that.

Kili had given his all for her, and she had watched as he died. Doing nothing.

Anger boiled as she thought of what she could have done. What she would have done if things had been different.

She didn't love him. Not like that.

_Legolas_.

Legolas, who had saved her life. He had been doing it for many years now.

She had asked something she _knew_ he would try his best to do.

It would mean everything to the fate of this land.

Evil, always rising higher, crushed once more, and then once again rising up.

She would remember him.

And maybe, one day soon, she would keep her promise and come back.

_Maybe._

* * *

"You are very lucky," Legolas said, decades later.

Aragorn smiled softly. "I know."

"I loved, once," he said softly, half to himself. "She was beautiful. Hair like fire, and green gems for eyes."

"Who was she?" Aragorn asked in a low voice.

Legolas smiled whimsically, looking at the stars. "Tauriel. She asked me to keep a promise, and I have. I pray that she will as well."

Aragorn laid a hand on his shoulder. "She will."

_She will_.

* * *

A figure, draped in shadow and disappearing into the darkness of the trees.

Legolas reached for his bow. Even after all this time, he still feared what could lurk in the shadows. War had forever scarred him.

Still, he waited. He clung to her memory in the darkest times,when he had nothing else.

His heart still ached. Slowly, though, it had healed over. A scab over an always-present wound.

The figure detached itself from the shadows.

"Do you know who I am?" The words rang strong through the air, echos of memmory and pain.

A shiver ran through him. The voice that haunted both his daydreams and nightmares.

Legolas cleared his throat. It could not be. Slowly, he dismounted.

"Remember when someone told you that, one day, they would come back?"

"_Tauriel_?" he whispered.

The cloak fell away.

"You remembered," she whispered, green eyes glinting.

Still, he stared at her in shock.

"I did not think you would," she continued. "You are the only one."

Shaking now, he drew her close, breathing in her scent and touched her hair. "I could never, _ever_ forget."

Tauriel smiled sadly, why he did not know. "I know, now," she whispered. "Somewhere deep down, I think I always knew."

And they wept.

Together, after all those years.

* * *

_Remember when._

Just two words, simple and sweet, mingled with both a promise and fallen tears.

He remembered.

He always would.


End file.
